White House Plumbers

The White House Plumbers was a covert White House Special Investigations Unit, established on 24 July 1971 during the presidency of Richard Nixon. Its task was to stop the leaking of classified information, such as the Pentagon Papers, to the news media. It also branched into illegal activities while working for Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign, CREEP, and the Plumbers were responsible with breaking into the Democratic Party national headquarters in the Watergate scandal. The burglars were James W. McCord, Jr., Bernard Barker, Eugenio Martinez, Frank Sturgis, and Virgilio R. Gonzales.